Prior service USMC pursuing guard pilot, looking for advice please

I've read through about 20 pages of posts on this site and only managed to find one situation that kind of applied to me. I'm looking for more specific advice for my situation.

So I served 4 years in the USMC and got out to goto school for mech. engineering. Because of this I have currently been out of the military for too long so I need to go back to school in order to apply for WOCS as 153A. I am looking for advice about what job to select.

I have talked to an enlisted guard recruiter and a WOSM and they both agree I need to enlist. I was given a few options.

1. Enlist 15T (blackhawk mech.) to familiarize myself with aircraft, but also so I am in an aviation unit.

2. Enlist 12B. (combat eng.) If I don't pass a flight physical or some other unforseen issue comes up I would like to be a commissioned combat eng.

3. Choose 09S option. (commission, choose eng. branch) Ideally choose accelerated OCS. If I cant be a WO pilot then I would like to spend my 20 years or so in the guard with a commission.

4. Enlist 92F. (fueler) I enlisted in the USMC with the hopes of being a combat eng. but somehow was given a fueler position. 92F is army equivalent. The job was stupid, but i'm told it will get me to an aviation unit the fastest (6 weeks) so that I can drop a package.

I'm 28 and plan on joining something within the next 3 months. I want to be able to put together a competitive package. I don't mind taking the long way around and going 09S and choosing eng. branch if having a commission would be an advantage on a board. I'm open to other recommendations with a brief explanation of why to choose it. Any advice is welcome.

If you go the Guard route, talk to the unit you plan on joining. They must know ahead of time that you are only enlisting in order to put a packet together. It will save you much trouble later. Remember, you are likely filling a slot that they actually need filled with a worker. Many units are not keen on you arriving and believing that you will soon be leaving for WOCS only to have to fill that slot again. But if the unit you are working with knows of, and approves of, your plan it will work out better for you. If you think you are going to enlist in the Guard and show up to your unit one day saying, "I'm here to go to flight school," expect to be laughed at. That's not how it works. But again, if everyone knows the deal ahead of time you can indeed be fast tracked to putting your packet together.

If your goal is to go to flight school, I would certainly make it an aviation field that you enlist in. While refueling might be a faster track, I'm a Guard pilot and never see a refueler (other than perhaps at the FARP during annual training). I see crew chiefs every day I am at the facility. If I was looking to get into the unit, I'd be a 15T long before I was a refueler. Saving yourself some time in AIT may not save you time in the end. I'd write a letter for one of my crew chiefs that I see all the time before I wrote one for a refueler that I rarely see.

All that being said, warrant aviation and commissioned engineers are two entirely different things. They are not exactly a "fallback" for one another. You need to pick the route you want to take. You can't worry about things you can't affect. Pick the route you want and do that.

Hey man, similar boat here (6+ years enlisted USMCr perusing my grad degree). Ask to meet with the aviation unit. I was planning on doing the exact same thing you are and low and behold I was advised to apply directly when I sat down with some of the members of the aviation unit in a meeting that the WOSM and recruiter arranged. I did have to do some bending over backwards to get my packet together (see my thread), but it is doable, including the flight physical, if the unit will play ball. Still waiting on my board date at this point.

Long story short the flight surgeon can get you a list of stuff you need done (eyes, EKG, lab work) to bring to them which in turn they submit to submit to Rucker, and you can take the SIFT with an ROTC unit nearby.